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ROBERT EDWARD LEE 



ORATION 



PRONOUNCED AT THE 



UNVEILING OF THE RECUMBENT FIGURE 



At Lexington Virginia June 28th 1883 



JOHN WARWICK DANIEL LL. D. 



SAVANNAH GA. 






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Mr. President, my Comrades and Countrymen : 

There was no happier or lovelier home than that of 
Colonel Robert Edward Lee, in the spring of 1861, when 
for the first time its threshold was darkened with the omens 
of civil war. 

Crowning the green slopes of the Virginia hills that over- 
look the Potomac, and embowered in stately trees, stood the 
venerable mansion of Arlington, facing a prospect of varied 
and imposing beauty. Its broad porch and wide-spread 
wings held out open arms, as it were, to welcome the com- 
ing guest. Its simple Doric columns graced domestic com- 
fort with a classic air. Its halls and chambers were adorned 
with the portraits of patriots and heroes, and with illustra- 
tions and relics of the great Revolution, and of the Father 
of his Country. And within and without, history and tradi- 
tion seemed to breathe their legends upon a canvas as soft 
as a dream of peace. 

The noble river which in its history, as well as in its name, 
carries us back to the days when the red man trod its banks, 
sweeps in full and even flow along the forefront of the land- 
scape, while beyond its waters stretch the splendid avenues 
and rise the gleaming spires of Washington ; and over all the 
great white dome of the National Capitol looms up against 
the eastern sky like a glory in the air. 



Southward and westward, toward the blue rim of the Alle- 
ghanies, roll away the pine and oak-clad hills and the fields 
of the " Old Dominion," dotted here and there with the 
homes of a people of simple tastes and upright minds, re- 
nowned for their devotion to their native land and for their 
fierce love of liberty — a people who had drunk into their 
souls with their mothers' milk, that man is of right, and 
ought to be, free. 

On the one hand there was impressed upon the most 
casual eye that contemplated the pleasing prospect, the 
munificence and grandeur of American progress, the arts of 
industry and commerce, and the symbols of power. On 
the other hand, nature seemed to woo the heart back to her 
sacred haunts, with vistas of sparkling waters and verdant 
pastures, and many a wildwood scene ; and to penetrate its 
deepest recesses with the halcyon charm that ever lingers 
about the thought of home. 

The head of the house established here was a man whom 
nature had richly endowed with graces of person, and high 
qualities of head and heart. Fame had already bound his 
brow with her laurel, and fortune had poured into his lap 
her golden horn. Himself a soldier, and colonel in the 
army of the United States, the son of that renowned " Light- 
Horse Harry " Lee who was the devoted friend and com- 
patriot of Washington in the Revolutionary struggle, and 
whose memorable eulogy upon his august chief has become 
his epitaph, — descended indeed from a long line of illustrious 
progenitors, whose names are written on the brightest scrolls 
of English and American history, from the conquest of the 
Norman at Hastings to the triumph of the Continentals at 
Yorktown — he had already established his own martial fame 
at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Molino 
del Rey, Chapultepec, and Mexico, and had proved how little 
he depended upon any merit but his own. Such was his 
early distinction that, when but a captain, the Cuban Junta 
had offered to make him the leader of their revolutionary 
movement for the independence of Cuba, a position which, 
as an American officer, he felt it his duty to decline. And 

(2) 



so deep was the impression made of his genius and his valor 
that General Scott, commander-in-chief of the army in which 
he served, had declared that he " was the best soldier he ever 
saw in the field," "the greatest military genius in America," 
that " if opportunity offered he would show himself the fore- 
most captain of his times," and that " if a great battle were to 
be fought for the liberty or slavery of the country, his judg- 
ment was that the commander should be Robert Lee." 

Wedded to her who had been the playmate of his boyhood, 
and who was worthy in every relation to be the companion 
of his bosom, sons and daughters had risen up to call them 
blessed, and there, decorated with his country's honors and 
surrounded by " love, obedience, and troops of friends," the 
host of Arlington seemed to have filled the measure of gen- 
erous desire with whatever of fame or happiness fortune can 
add to virtue. And had the pilgrim started in quest of some 
happier spot than the Vale of Rasselas, well might he have 
paused by this threshold and doffed his " sandal shoon." 

So situated was Colonel Lee in the spring of 1861, upon 
the verge of the momentous revolution of which he became 
so mighty a pillar and so glorious a chieftain. But we can- 
not estimate the struggle it cost him to take up arms against 
the Union, nor the sacrifice he made, nor the pure devotion 
with which he consecrated his sword to his native State, 
without looking beyond his physical surroundings, and fol- 
lowing further the suggestions of his history and character 
for the springs of action which prompted his course. Col- 
onel Lee was emphatically a Union man, and Virginia, to the 
crisis of dissolution, was a Union State. He loved the Union 
with a soldier's ardent loyalty for the government he served, 
and with a patriot's faith and hope in the institutions of his 
country. His ancestors had been among the most distin- 
guished and revered of its founders ; his own life from youth 
upward had been spent and his blood shed in its service, 
and two of his sons, following his footsteps, held commis- 
sions in the army. 

He was born in the same county, and descended from the 
same strains of English blood from which Washington 

(3) 



sprang, and was united in marriage with Mary Custis, the 
daughter of his adopted son. He had been reared in the 
school of simple manners and lofty thoughts which belonged 
to the elder generation ; and with Washington as his exem- 
plar of manhood and his ideal of wisdom, he reverenced his 
character and fame and work with a feeling as near akin to 
worship as any that man can have for aught that is human. 

Unlike the statesmen of the hostile sections, who were con- 
stantly thrown into the provoking conflicts of political de- 
bate, he had been withdrawn by his military occupations from 
scenes calculated to irritate or chill his kindly feelings toward 
the people of the North; and on the contrary — in camp and 
field and social circle — he had formed many ties of friendship 
with its most esteemed soldiers and citizens. With the reti- 
cence becoming his military office, he had taken no part in 
the controversies which preceded the fatal rupture between 
the States, other than the good man's part, to " speak the soft 
answer that turns away wrath," and to plead for that forbear- 
ance and patience which alone might bring about a peaceful 
solution of the questions at issue. 

Years of his professional life he had spent in Northern 
communities, and, always a close observer of men and things, 
he well understood the vast resources of that section, and the 
hardy, industrious, and resolute character of its people ; and 
he justly weighed their strength as a military power. When 
men spoke of how easily the South would repel invasion, he 
said : " You forget that we are all Americans." And when 
they prophesied a battle and a peace, he predicted that it 
would take at least four years to fight out the impending 
conflict. None was more conscious than he that each side 
undervalued and misunderstood the other. He was, more- 
over, deeply imbued with the philosophy of history, and the 
course of its evolutions, and well knew that in an upheaval of 
government deplorable results would follow which were not 
thought of in the beginning, or, if thought of, would be dis- 
avowed, belittled, and depreciated. And eminently conserva- 
tive in his cast of mind and character, every bias of his 
judgment, as every tendency of his history, filled him with 

(4) 



yearning and aspiration for the peace of his country and the 
perpetuity of the Union. Is it a wonder, that, as the storm 
of revolution lowered. Colonel Lee, then with his regiment, 
the Second Cavalry, in Texas, wrote thus to his son in Jan- 
uary, 1861 : — 

"The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts 
of the North as you say. I feel the aggression, and am will- 
ing to take any proper steps for redress. It is the principle I 
contend for, not individual or private benefit. As an Ameri- 
can citizen I take great pride in my country, her prosperity 
and institutions, and would defend any State if her rights 
were invaded. But I can anticipate no greater calamity for 
the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an 
accumulation of all evils we complain of, and I am willing to 
sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, 
therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted be- 
fore there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revo- 
lution. * * Still, a Union that can only be maintained by 
swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to 
take the place of love and kindness, has no charm for me. I 
shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress 
of mankind. If the Union is dissolved, and the Government \ 
is disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the 
miseries of my people, and, save in defense, will draw my 
sword on none." 

A few weeks later Colonel Lee was ordered, and came, to 
Washington, reaching there three days before the inaugura- 
tion of President Lincoln. At that time South Carolina, 
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana had 
already seceded from the Union, and the Provisional Govern- 
ment of the Confederate States was in operation at Mont- 
gomery. 

The Virginia Convention was in session, but slow and de- 
liberate in its course. The State which had done so much to 
found the Union was loth to assent to its dissolution, and still 
guided by the wise counsels of such men as Robert E. Scott, 
Robert Y. Conrad, Jubal A. Early, John B. Baldwin, Samuel 

(5) 



McDowell Moore, and A. H. H. Stuart, she persisted in 
efforts to avert the calamity of war. Events followed swiftly. 
The Peace Conference had failed. Overtures for the peace- 
ful evacuation of Fort Sumter had likewise failed. On the 
13th of April, under bombardment, the Federal commander, 
Major Anderson, with its garrison, surrendered. On April 
15th President Lincoln issued his proclamation for 75,000 
men to make war against the seceded States, which he styled 
"Combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordi- 
nary course of judicial proceedings." This proclamation 
determined Virginia's course. War had come. Her media- 
tion had been in vain. She was too noble to be neutral. 

Of the arts of duplicity she knew nothing save to despise. 
She must now level her guns against the breasts of her 
Southern brethren, or make her own breast their shield. 
On April 17th Virginia answered Mr. Lincoln's proclamation 
with the Ordinance of Secession, and, like Pallas-Athene, 
"the front fighter" stepped with intrepid brow to where, in 
conflict, history has ever found her — to the front of war. 

Where now is Robert Lee ? On the border line, between 
two hostile empires, girding their loins for as stern a fight as 
ever tested warriors' steel, he beholds each beckoning to him 
to lead its people to battle. On the one hand, Virginia, now 
in the forefront of a scarcely organized revolution, summons 
him to share her lot in the perilous adventure. The young 
Confederacy is without an army. There is no navy. There 
is no currency. There are few teeming work-shops and arse- 
nals. There is little but a meagre and widely-scattered popu- 
lation, for the most part men of the field, the prairie, the 
forest, and the mountain, ready to stand the hazard of an 
audacious endeavor to meet aggressions with whatever weap- 
ons freemen can lay their hands on, and to carry high the 
banners of the free, whatever may betide. 

Did he fail ? Ah, did he fail ? His beloved State would 
be trampled in the mire of the ways; the Confederacy would 
be blotted from the family of nations; home and country 
would survive only in memory and in name; his people 
would be captives, their very slaves their masters; and he, 

(6) 



if of himself he thought at all, he, mayhap, might have seen 
in the dim perspective the shadow of the dungeon or the 
scaffold. 

On the other hand stands the foremost and most powerful 
republic of the earth, rich in all that handiwork can fashion or 
that gold can buy. It is thickly populated. Its regular army 
and its myriad volunteers rush to do its bidding. Its navy 
rides the Western seas in undisputed sway. Its treasury 
teems with the sinews of war, and its arsenals with weapons. 
And the world is open to lend its cheer and aid and comfort. 
Its capital lies in sight of his chamber window, and its guns 
bear on the portals of his home. A messenger comes from 
its President and from General Scott, commander-in-chief of 
its army, to tender him supreme command of its forces. Did 
he accept, and did he succeed, the conqueror's crown awaits 
him, and, win or lose, he will remain the foremost man of a 
great established nation, with all honor and glory that riches 
and office and power and public applause can supply. 

Since the Son of Man stood upon the Mount, and saw "all 
the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them " stretched 
before him, and turned away to the agony and bloody sweat 
of Gethsemane, and to the Cross of Calvary beyond, no fol- 
lower of the meek and lowly Saviour can have undergone 
more trying ordeal, or met it with higher spirit of heroic 
sacrifice. 

There was naught on earth that could swerve Robert E. 
Lee from the path where, to his clear comprehension, honor 
and duty lay. To the statesman, Mr. Francis Preston Blair, 
who brought him the tender of supreme command, he an- 
swered : — 

"Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned . 

the four millions of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice i 

them all to the Union. But how can I draw my sword \ 

against Virginia?" * 

Draw his sword against Virginia? Perish the thought! 
Over all the voices that called him he heard the still small 
voice that ever whispers to the soul of the spot that gave it 

(7) 



birth, and of her who gave it suck ; and over every ambitious 
dream there rose the face of the angel that guards the door 
of home. 

On the 20th of April, as soon as the news of Virginia's se- 
cession reached him, he resigned his commission in the army 
of the United States, and thus wrote to his sister who re- 
mained with her husband on the Union side: — 

"With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of 
loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able 
to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, 
my children, my home. I have, therefore, resigned my com- 
mission in the army, and, save in defense of my native State 
(with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be 
needed), I hope I may never be called upon to draw my 
sword." 

Bidding an affectionate adieu to his old friend and com- 
mander. General Scott, who mourned his loss, but nobly ex- 
pressed his confidence in his motives, he repaired to Rich- 
mond. Governor John Letcher immediately appointed him 
to the command-in-chief of the Virginia forces, and the Con- 
vention unanimously confirmed the nomination. Memorable 
and impressive was the scene when he came into the presence 
of that body on April 23d. Its venerable president, John 
Janney, with brief, sententious eloquence, addressed him, and 
concluded saying: — 

"Sir, we have by this unanimous vote expressed our con- 
victions that you are at this day, among the living citizens of 
Virginia, * first in war.' We pray to God most fervently that 
you may so conduct the operations committed to your 
charge, that it may be said of you that you are 'first in 
peace,' and when that time comes, you will have earned the 
still prouder distinction of being 'first in the hearts of yoiw 
countrymen.' 

"Yesterday your mother, Virginia, placed her sword in 
your hand upon the implied condition that we know you 
will keep in letter and in spirit : that you will draw it only 

(8) 



in defense, and that you will fall with it in your hand rather 
than that the object for which it was placed there should fail." 

General Lee thus answered : — 
" Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : 

" Profoundly impressed with the solemnity of the occa- 
sion, for which, I must say, I was not prepared, I accept the 
position assigned me by your partiality. I would have pre- 
ferred had your choice fallen upon an abler man. Trusting 
in Almighty God, an approving conscience, and the aid of my 
fellow-citizens, I devote myself to the service of my native 
State, in whose behalf alone will I ever again draw my 
sword." 

Thus came Robert E. Lee to the State of his birth and to 
the people of his blood in their hour of need. Thus, with 
as chaste a heart as ever plighted its faith until death, for bet- 
ter or for worse, he came to do, to suffer, and to die for us 
who, to-day, are gathered in awful reverence, and in sorrow 
unspeakable, to weep our blessings upon his tomb. 

I pause not here to defend the course of General Lee, as 
that defense may be drawn from the Constitution of a Repub- 
lic which was born in the sublime protest of its people against 
bayonet rule, and founded on the bed-rock principle of free 
government, that all free governments "must derive their just 
powers from the consent of the governed," I pause not to 
trace the history or define the grounds of that theory of con- 
stitutional construction which maintained the right of seces- 
sion from the Union as an element of sovereign statehood — 
a theory which has found ablest and noblest advocacy in 
every section of the country. The tribunal is not yet formed 
that would hearken to such defense, nor is this the time or 
place to utter it. And to my mind there is for Lee and his 
compatriots a loftier and truer vindication than any that may 
be deduced from codes, constitutions, and conventional arti- 
cles of government. A great revolution need never apologize 
for nor explain itself There it is! — the august and thrilling 
rise of a whole population ! And the fact that it is there is 

(9) 



the best evidence of its right to be there. None but great 
inspirations underlie great actions. None but great causes 
can ever produce great events. A transient gust of passion 
may turn a crowd into a mob — a temporary impulse may 
swell a mob into a local insurrection; but when a whole 
people stand to their guns before their hearthstones, and as 
one man resist what they deem aggression; when for long 
years they endure poverty and starvation, and dare danger 
and death to maintain principles which they deem sacred; 
when they shake a continent with their heroic endeavors and 
fill the world with the glory of their achievements, history 
can make for them no higher vindication than to point to 
their deeds and say — "behold!" 

A people is its own judge. Under God there can be no 
higher judge for them to seek or court or fear. In the su- 
preme moments of national life, as in the life of individuals, 
the actor must resolve and act within himself alone. The 
Southern States acted for themselves — the Northern States 
for themselves — Virginia for herself. And when the lines of 
battle formed, Robert Lee took his place in the line beside 
his people, his kindred, his children, his home. Let his 
defense rest on this fact alone. Nature speaks it. Nothing 
can strengthen it. Nothing can weaken it. The historian 
may compile; the casuist may dissect; the statesman may 
expatiate; the advocate may plead; the jurist may expound; 
but, after all, there can be no stronger or tenderer tie than 
that which binds the faithful heart to kindred and to home. 
And on that tie — stretching from the cradle to the grave, 
spanning the heavens, and riveted through eternity to the 
throne of God on high, and underneath in the souls of good 
men and true — on that tie rests, stainless and immortal, the 
fame of Robert Lee. 

And now that war was flagrant, history delights to testify 
how grandly General Lee bore his part. Transferred from 
the State service to that of the Confederacy, with the rank 
of General, we behold him first in the field in the rugged 
mountains of Northwest Virginia, restoring the morale lost 
by the early reverses to our arms in that department — hold- 

(lO) 



ing invading columns in check with great disparity of force 
to meet them — bearing the censures of the impatient without 
a murmur, and careless of fame with duty done. Later, in 
the fall of 1 86 1, we find him exercising his skill as an 
engineer in planning defenses along the threatened coast of 
South Carolina; and in March, 1862, he is again in Virginia, 
charged by President Davis "with the conduct of military 
operations in the armies of the Confederacy" — in brief, and 
in some sort, under the President, commander-in-chief. 

But now a year of war had rolled by; no brilliant accom- 
plishment had yet satisfied the public expectation with which 
he had been welcomed as a Southern leader; and as the fame 
of revolutionary captains can only be fed with victories, it is 
unquestionable that, at this stage of his career, the reputation 
of Lee, as a general, had sensibly declined. 

Meanwhile the Army of Northern Virginia had made a 
name in history under its famous commander, Joseph E. 
Johnston, and I cannot speak that name without bowing the 
homage of my heart to the illustrious soldier and noble gen- 
tleman who bears it. Under his sagacious and brilliant 
leadership his forces had been suddenly withdrawn from 
Patterson's front, near Winchester, and united with those of 
General Beauregard, at Manassas; and there, led by these 
two Generals, the joint command had, on July 21st, 1861, 
routed the Army of the Potomac in the first pitched battle 
of the war; had given earnest of what the volunteers of the 
South could do in action, and had crowned the new-born 
Confederacy with the glory of splendid military achievement. 
Still later in the progress of events, Johnston had exhibited 
again his strategic skill in holding McClellan at bay on the 
lines of Yorktown, with a force so small that it seemed hardi- 
hood to oppose him with it — had eluded his toils by a re- 
treat up the Peninsula, so cleanly conducted that little was 
lost beyond the space vacated — had turned and fiercely smit- 
ten his advancing columns near the old colonial capital of 
Williamsburg on May 5th, 1862, and had planted his army 
firmly around Richmond. Pending the siege of Yorktown, 
a thing had happened that probably had no parallel in his- 

(II) 



tory. The great body of General Johnston's army had reor- 
ganized itself under the laws of the Confederacy, while lying 
under the fire of the enemy's guns, the privates of each com- 
pany electing by ballot the officers that were to command 
them. A singular exercise of suffrage was this, but there 
was "a free ballot and a fair count," and an exhibition 
worthy of 

* * * * "that fierce democratic 

Shook the arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece, 

To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne," 

— an exhibition which would have delighted the heart of 
Thomas Jefferson, and which certainly put to blush the auto- 
cratic theory that armies should be mere compact masses of 
brute force. Still later, on May 31st, Johnston had sallied 
forth and stormed and taken the outer entrenchments and 
camps of McClellan's army at Seven Pines, capturing ten 
pieces of artillery, six thousand muskets, and other spoils of 
war, and destroying the prestige of the second " On to Rich- 
mond " movement. 

But ere the day was done victory had been checked, and 
glory had exacted costly tribute, for Johnston himself had 
fallen terribly wounded. The hero, covered with ten wounds 
received in Florida and Mexico, had been prostrated by 
another; and when June ist dawned on the confronting 
armies, the Army of Northern Virginia was without the 
leader who held its thorough confidence, but now lay 
stricken well-nigh unto death. The casualty which thus 
deprived the army of its honored commander, and closed 
to him the opportunity which, in large measure, his own 
great skill had created, opened the opportunity of Lee. 
Fortunate the State and great the people from whom 
sprang two such sons — fortunate the army that always had 
a leader worthy of it — happy he who can transmit his place 
to one so well qualified to fill it — and happy likewise he 
who has had such predecessor to prepare the way for victory. 

On the 3d of June, 1862, General Lee was assigned to 
command in person the Army of Northern Virginia; and 

(12) 



from that day to April 9th, 1865, nearly three years, he was 
at its head. And on the page of history now laid open are 
crowded schemes of war and feats of arms as brilliant as ever 
thrilled the soul of heroism and genius with admiration — a 
page of history that feasted glory till pity cried, " no more." 
Swift was Lee to plan, and swift to execute. Making a feint 
of reinforcing Jackson in the Valley, startling the Federal 
authorities with apprehensions of attack on the Potomac 
lines, and practically eliminating McDowell, who with his 
corps remained near Fredericksburg, he suddenly descends 
with Jackson on the right and rear of McClellan, and, ere 
thirty days have passed since he assumed command, Rich- 
mond has been saved, and the fields around her made im- 
mortal ; and the broken ranks of McClellan are crouching 
for protection under the heavy guns of the iron-clads at 
Harrison's Landing. Sixty days more, and the siege of 
Richmond has been raised — the Confederate columns are 
marching northward; Jackson, in the advance, has, on Au- 
gust 9th, caught up again with his old friend Banks at 
Slaughter's Mountain and punished him terribly, and, as 
the day closes August 30th, Manassas has the second time 
been the scene of a general engagement, with like results 
as the first. John Pope, who thitherto according to his 
pompous boast had " seen only the backs of his enemies," 
has had his curiosity entirely satisfied with a brief glimpse of 
their faces ; and the proud Army of the Potomac is flying in 
hot haste to find shelter in the entrenchments of Washington. 
In early September the Confederates are in Maryland. In 
extreme exigency, McClellan is recalled to command the 
Army of the Potomac, but while Lee holds him in check at 
Boonsboro and South Mountain a series of complicated ma- 
noeuvres have invested General Miles, the Federal officer in 
command at Harper's Ferry, and on September 15 th Stone- 
wall Jackson has there received surrender of his entire army 
of eleven thousand men, seventy-three cannon, thirteen thou- 
sand small arms, two hundred wagons, and many stores. 
But there is no time to rest, for McClellan presses Lee at 
Sharpsburg, and there, September 17th, battle is delivered. 

(13) 



Upon its eve Jackson has arrived fresh from Harper's Ferry. 
McClellan's repeated assaults on Lee were everywhere re- 
pulsed. He remained on the field September i8th, and then 
recrossed the Potomac into Virginia. 

The winter of 1862 comes, and Burnside, succeeding Mc- 
Clellan, assails Lee at Fredericksburg on December 13th, 
and is repulsed with terrible slaughter. 

With the dawn of spring in 1863, a replenished army with 
a fresh commander, " Fighting Joe Hooker," renews the 
onset by way of Chancellorsville, and finds Lee with two 
divisions of Longstreet's corps absent in Southeast Virginia. 
But slender as are his numbers, Lee is ever aggressive; 
and while Hooker with " the finest army on the planet," as 
he styled it, is confronting Lee near Chancellorsville, and 
Early is holding Sedgwick at bay at Fredericksburg, Jack- 
son, who, under Lee's directions, has stealthily marched 
around him, comes thundering in his rear, and, alas for 
" Fighting Joe," he can only illustrate his pugnacious soubri- 
quet by the consoling reflection that 

' ' He who fights and runs away 
May live to fight another day, ' ' 

for Chancellorsville shines high on the list of Confederate 
victories, and indeed was one of the grandest victories that 
ever blazoned the annals of war. 

But alas, too, for the victor — on May 2d, in the culminat- 
ing act of the drama, Jackson himself had fallen, and never 
more is the " foot cavalry " to see again along the smoking 
lines that calm, stern face ; never to hear again that crisp 
fierce order, *' Give them the bayonet ! " Avhich so often her- 
alded the triumphant charge ; never is the Southern land to 
be thrilled again with his familiar bulletin — "God blessed 
our arms with victory." At the age of thirty-nine — at a 
time of life when the powers of manhood are ordinarily 
scarce full-orbed, he has touched the zenith and filled the 
world with his fame, and he who went forth two years 
before from this quiet town, scarce known beyond it, comes 
back upon the soldier's bier, renowned, revered, and mourned 

(14) 



in every clime where the heart quickens in sympathy for 
surpassing valor united with transcendent genius and honor 
without a stain. There he sleeps, in yon green grave, and 
as in life he fought, so in death he rests, with Lee. 

But not long can the soldier pause to weep. We fire our 
salute over the ashes of our heroic dead ; and again the 
bugles sound " boots and saddles," and the long roll is beat- 
ing. Less than a month has passed, and again the Army 
of Northern Virginia is in motion, and while Hooker is 
groping around to ascertain the whereabouts of his adver- 
sary, the next scene unfolds : General Early has planned and 
executed a flank march around Winchester, worthy of Stone- 
wall Jackson — the men of his division are mounting the 
parapets on June 14th, and capturing Milroy's guns. Gen- 
eral Edward Johnston's division is pursuing Milroy's fugi- 
tives down the Valley pike. General Rodes has captured 
Martinsburg with one hundred prisoners and five cannon — 
Ewell's corps is master of the Valley — and by June 24th 
the Army of Northern Virginia is in Pennsylvania, while for 
the third time the Army of the Potomac is glad if it can 
interpose to prevent the fall of Washington — and a sixth 
commander has come to its head — General George G. 
Meade. 

Then follows the boldest and grandest assault of modern 
war — the charge upon the Federal centre entrenched on the 
heights of Gettysburg — a charge that well-nigh ended the 
war with "a clap of thunder," and was so characterized by 
brave design and dauntless execution that friend and foe 
alike burst into irrepressible praise of the great commander 
who directed and of the valorous men who made it. It failed. 
But Lee, unshaken, rallies the broken line, and the next 
morning stands in steady array, flaunting his banners defi- 
antly, and challenging renewal of the strife. " It is all my 
fault," he says. Not so thought his men. We saw him 
standing by the roadside with his bridle-rein over his arm, 
on the second day afterwards, as the army was withdrawing. 
Pickett's division filed past him; every general of brigade 
had fallen, and every field-officer of its regiments ; a few tat- 

(15) 



tered battle-flags and a few hundreds of men were all that 
was left of the magnificent body, five thousand strong, who 
had made the famous charge. He stood with uncovered 
head, as if he reviewed a conquering host, and with the 
conqueror's look upon him. With proud step the men 
marched by, and as they raised their hats and cheered him 
there was the tenderness of devoted love mingled with the 
fire of battle in their eyes. 

Returning to Virginia in martial trim and undismayed, and 
followed by Meade with that slow and gingerly step which is 
self-explaining, we next behold our General displaying that 
rare self-poise and confidence which bespeaks ever a great 
quality — firmness of mind in war. In September, while he 
confronts Meade along the Rapidan, he detaches the entire 
corps of Longstreet, and ere Meade is aware of this weaken- 
ing of his opponent's forces, Longstreet is nine hundred miles 
away, striking a terrible blow at Chickamauga. 

The year 1863 passes by without other significant event in 
the story of the Army of Northern Virginia. Meade indeed, 
once, in November, deployed his lines along Mine Run in 
seeming overtures of battle, but quickly concluding that "dis- 
cretion was the better part of valor," he marched back across 
the Rappahannock, content with his observations. 

But as the May blossoms in 1864, we hear once more the 
wonted strains of spring, " tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are 
marching," and Grant (who had succeeded Meade), crossing 
the Rappahannock with 141,000 men, plunges boldly into the 
Wilderness on May 4th, leading the sixth crusade for the re- 
duction of Richmond. But scarce had he disclosed his line 
of march, than Lee, with 50,000 of his braves, springs upon 
him and hurls him back, staggering and gory, through the 
tangled chaparral of the Wilderness, and from the fields of 
Spotsylvania; and though the redoubtable Grant writes to 
the Government on May 12th, "I propose to fight it out on 
this line if it takes all summer," when we look over the field 
of Cold Harbor on June 3d, we see there, stretched in swaths 
and piled in reeking mounds, 13,000 of his men — the killed 
and wounded of his last assault " in the overland campaign," 

(16) 



and when Grant ordered his hnes to attack again the flinty- 
front of Lee, they stood immobile — in silent protest against 
the vain attempt, and in silent eulogy of their sturdy foe. 
One summer month had been summer time enough for Grant 
along that impervious line ; and there at Cold Harbor practi- 
cally closed the sixth expedition aimed directly at the Con- 
federate capital — McDowell, McClellan, Pope, Burnside, 
Hooker, and now Grant — all being disastrously repulsed by 
the Army of Northern Virginia, and all but the first receiving 
their repulse by the army led by Lee. But Grant in some 
sort veiled his reverses by immediately abandoning attack on 
the north side of the James, which he crossed in the middle 
of June — attempting to capture Petersburg on the south side 
by a coup de main. But in this, after four days' successive 
assaults, which ended in vain carnage, he failed again ; and 
almost simultaneously Hunter's invasion through the Valley 
was intercepted and successfully repelled at Lynchburg by 
the swift and bold movements of Lee's greatest lieutenant — 
the ever-to-be-counted-on Jubal A. Early, who had been dis- 
patched to meet him with a force not half his equal in num- 
bers. And when midsummer came. Grant was glad to shelter 
his drooping banners behind entrenchments ; Hunter was fly- 
ing to the mountains of West Virginia, and detachments were 
hurrying from the Army of the Potomac to save Washington, 
which was trembling at the sound of Early's guns. In that ' 
wonderful campaign of Lee from the Wilderness to Peters- 
burg, Grant had lost no less than 70,000 men in reaching a 
point which he might have gained by river approaches with- 
out the loss of one. Every man in the Army of Northern 
Virginia had more than stricken down a foeman; and final 
demonstration had been given to the fact that in field fight [ 
Lee could not be matched in generalship, and that the Army 
of Northern Virginia was invincible. This fact the hard 
sense of Grant recognized ; and though no commander who 
felt himself and his men to be the equals of their adversaries 
in manoeuvre and combat would ever come down to such 
conclusion, it is creditable to Grant's plain, matter-of-fact way 
of looking at things, that he looked at them just as they were. 

(17) 



And so he resorted to sap and mine and pick and spade to 
do the work which strategy and valor had so often essayed in 
vain. For nine months the armies lay before the muzzles of 
each other's guns, — bumping, as it were, against each other 
— Grant deliberately counting that he who had the most 
heads could butt the longest. Thus Lee stood with less than 
40,000 men covering a line of thirty miles, while Grant, with 
more than three times that number, over and over again at 
Reams' Station, at the Crater, at Hatcher's Run, and other 
points, battered the armor from which every blow recoiled. 
So Lee stood with a half-fed and half-clothed soldiery, com- 
posed largely of stripling youth and failing age, beating back 
his three-fold foe, freshly recruited for every fresh assault, and 
generously provided with the richest stores and most ap- 
proved arms and munitions of war. 

Time forbids that I prolong the story ; and this imperfect 
sketch is but a dim outline of that grand historic picture in 
which Robert Lee will ever stand as the foremost figure, 
challenging and enchaining the reverence and admiration of 
mankind; the faint suggestion of that magnificent career 
which has made for him a place on the heights of history 
as high as warrior's sword has ever carved. 

Vain was the mighty struggle led by the peerless Lee. 
Genius planned, valor executed, patriotism stripped itself of 
every treasure, and heroism fought and bled and died, and all 
in vain ! When the drear winter of 1864 came at last, there 
came also premonitions of the end. " The very seed-corn of 
the Confederacy had been ground up," as President Davis 
said. The people sat at naked tables and slept in sheetless 
beds, for their apparel had been used to bind up wounds. 
The weeds grew in fenceless fields, for the plow-horse was 
pulling the cannon. The church-yard and the mansion fences 
were stripped of their leaden ornaments, that the musket and 
the rifle might not lack for bullets. The church bells, now 
melted into cannon, pealed forth the dire notes of war. The 
land was drained of its substance, and the Army of Northern 
Virginia was nearly exhausted for want of food and raiment. 
All through the bleak winter days and nights its decimated 

(18) 



and shivering ranks still faced the dense battalions of Grant, 
in misery and in want not less than that which stained the 
snows of Valley Forge ; and the army seemed to live only on 
its innate, indomitable will, as oftentimes we see some noble 
mind survive when the physical powers of nature have been 
exhausted. Like a rock of old ocean, it had received and 
broken and hurled back into the deep in bloody foam those 
swiftly succeeding waves of four years of incessant battle; but 
now the rock itself was wearing away, and still the waves 
came on. 

A new enemy was approaching the sturdy devoted band. 
In September, 1864, Atlanta fell, and through Georgia to the 
sea, with fire and sword, swept the victorious columns of 
Sherman. In January, 1865, the head of the column had 
been turned northward ; and in February, Columbia and 
Charleston shared the fate that had already befallen Savan- 
nah. Yes, a new enemy was approaching the Army of 
Northern Virginia, and this time in the rear. The homes 
of the soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia from the 
Southern States were now in ashes. Wives, mothers, and 
sisters were wanderers under the wintry skies, flying from 
the invaders who smote and spared not in their relentless 
march. Is it wonder that hearts that had never quailed 
before bayonet or blade beat now with tremulous and irre- 
pressible emotion ? Is it wonder that, in the watches of the 
night, the sentinel in the' trenches, tortured to excruciation 
with the thought that those dearest of earth to him were 
without an arm to save, felt his soul sink in anguish and 
his hope perish ? So it was, that with hunger and naked- 
ness as its companions, and foes in front and foes in rear, 
the Army of Northern Virginia seemed bound to the rock 
of fate. 

On April ist, the left wing of Grant's massive lines swept 
around the right and rear of Lee. Gallantly did Pickett and 
his men meet and resist them at Five Forks; but that com- 
manding strategic point was taken, and the fall of Petersburg 
and of Richmond alike became inevitable. On the next day, 
April 2d, they were evacuated. Grant was now on a shorter 

(19) 



line projected towards Danville than Lee, and the latter com- 
menced at once that memorable retreat towards Lynchburg, 
which ended at Appomattox. 

Over that march of desperate valor disputing fate, as over 
the face of a hero in the throes of dissolution, I throw the 
blood-reeking battle-flag, rent with wounds, as a veil. And 
I hail the heroic army and its heroic chief, as, on the 9th of 
April morn, they stand embattled in calm and stern repose, 
ready to die with their harness on — warriors every inch, 
without fear, without stain. Around the little hamlet of 
Appomattox Court-House is gathered the remnant of the 
Army of Northern Virginia — less than 8,000 men with arms 
in their hands — less than 27,000 all told, counting camp 
followers and stragglers ; and around them in massive con- 
centric lines the army of Grant, flushed with success and 
expectation — more than 80,000 strong upon the field, and 
with each hour bringing up reinforcements. " The envi- 
roned army, with a valor all Spartan, stands ready to die, 
not indeed in response to civic laws denying surrender, but 
obedient to the lofty impulse of honor." Can they cut 
through ? Does the dream of a saved Confederacy yet 
beckon them on beyond the wall of steel and fire that gir- 
dles them ? Can they find fighting ground in the Caro- 
linas with Joseph E. Johnston, who, amongst the first to 
meet the foe, proves amongst the last to leave him? Can 
these dauntless foemen yet cleave a path to the inner coun- 
try, and renew the unequal strife ? 

Not till that hope is tested will they yield ! 

As the day dawns, a remnant of the cavalry under Fitz 
Lee is forming, and Gordon's infantry, scarce two thousand 
strong, are touching elbows for the last charge. Once more 
the thrilling rebel cheer rings through the Virginia woods, 
and with all their wonted fierceness they fall upon Sheridan's 
men. Ah ! yes, victory still clings to the tattered battle-flags. 
Yes, the troopers of our gallant Fitz are as dauntless as when 
they followed the plume of Stuart, " the flower of cavaliers." 
Yes, the matchless infantry of " tattered uniforms and bright 
muskets " under Gordon, the brave, move with as swift, in- 

(20) 



trepid tread as when of old Stonewall led the way. Sol- 
diers of Manassas, of Richmond, Sharpsburg, Fredericks- 
burg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, of the Wilderness, of 
Spotsylvania, of Cold Harbor, of Petersburg — scarred and 
sinewy veterans of fifty fields, your glories are still about 
you, your manhood is triumphant still. Yes, the blue lines 
break before them; two cannon and many prisoners are 
taken, and for two miles they sweep the field towards 
Lynchburg — victors still ! 

But no, too late ! too late ! Beyond the flying sabres and 
rifles of Sheridan rise the bayonets and frown the batteries of 
the Army of the James, under Ord — a solid phalanx stands 
right athwart the path of Fitz Lee's and Gordon's men. Too 
late! the die is cast! The doom is sealed! There is no 
escape. The eagle is quarried in his eyrie ; the wounded 
lion is hunted to his lair ! 

And so the guns of the last charge died away in the morn- 
ing air ; and echo, like the sob of a mighty sea, rolled up the 
valley of the James, and all was still. The last fight of the 
Army of Northern Virginia had been fought. The end had 
come. The smoke vanished. The startled birds renewed 
their songs over the stricken field; the battle smell was 
drowned in the fragrance of the flowering spring. And 
the ragged soldier of the South — God bless him! — stood 
there facing the dread reality, more terrible than death — 
stood there to grapple with and face down despair, for he 
had done his all, and all was lost, save honor ! 

General Lee, dressed in his best uniform, rides to the front 
to meet General Grant. For several days demands for sur- 
render had been rejected, now surrender was inevitable. And 
the two commanding ofificers met at the McLean house to 
concert its terms. The first and abiding thought of Lee was 
the honor of his men, for he had determined to "cut his 
way out at all hazards, if such terms were not granted as he 
thought his army was entitled to demand." " General," said 
Lee, addressing Grant, and opening the conversation, " I 
deem it due to proper candor and frankness to say, at the 
beginning of this interview, that I am not willing even to 

(21) 



discuss any terms of surrender inconsistent with the honor 
of my army, which I am determined to maintain to the 
last." Grant gave fitting and magnanimous response, and 
the honorable terms demanded were agreed to. " The offi- 
cers to retain their side arms, private horses, and baggage," 
and "each officer and man to be allowed to return to his 
home," and, mark it, " not to be disturbed by United States 
authority as long as they observe their parole, and the laws in 
force where they reside!' 

Thus at last was the liberty of the soldier purchased with 
his blood. 

And so the Army of Northern Virginia, never broken in 
battle, passed from action into history ; so it perished by the 
flashing of the guns, while victory hung charmed to its flag, 
and threw upon its tomb the immortelles of honor. 

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new. 
And God fulfils himself in many ways. ' ' 

" Meji, we have fotight through the war together. I have 
done my best for you ; my heart is too fidl to say 7nore" was 
Lee's utterance to the ragged, battle-begrimed boys in gray, 
who, when the dread news of surrender spread among them, 
gathered around him to shake his hand and testify their un- 
dying confidence and love. In his published address he said 
to them: " You will carry with you the satisfaction that pro- 
ceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed, 
and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you 
his blessing and protection. With an unceasing admiration of 
your constancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful 
remembrance of your kind and generous consideration of 
myself, I bid you an affectionate farewell." 

As Robert Lee rode from Appomattox toward Richmond, 
he carried with him the heart of every man that fought under 
him — linked to him with hooks of steel forever. When he 
reached the fallen capital of the dead Confederacy, and rode 
through its ashes and paling fires to his home, a body of Fed- 
eral soldiers there, catching a glimpse of his noble counte- 

(22) 



nance, lifted their hats and cheered, and as the great actor in 
the bloody drama stepped behind the scenes, and the curtain 
fell upon the tragic stage of the secession war, the last sounds 
that greeted his ear were the generous salutations of respect 
from those against whom he had wielded his knightly sword.^ 

Had the paroled soldier of Appomattox carried to retire- 
ment the vexed spirit and hollow heart of a ruined gamester, 
nothing had remained to him but to drain the dregs of a dis- 
appointed career. But there went with him that " conscious- 
ness of duty faithfully performed " which consoles every re- 
buff of fortune, sweetens every sorrow, and tempers every ca- 
lamity — and now it was that he proved indeed what he once 
expressed in language, that " Human fortitude should be 
equal to human adversity." Once on the Appomattox lines 
agony had tortured from his lips the words : " How easily I 
could get rid of this and be at rest! I have only to ride 
along the lines, and all will be over." But he quickly added : 
" It is our duty to live, for what will become of the women 
and children of the South if we are not here to support and 
protect them ? " And as the thought of his country was thus 
uppermost and controlling in the awful hour of surrender, so 
it remained to the closing of his life. Ere the struggle ended 
he had disclosed to a confidential friend. General Pendleton, 
that " He never believed we could, against the gigantic com- 
bination for our subjugation, make good our independence, 
unless foreign powers, directly or indirectly, assisted us." 
But, said he, "We had sacred principles to maintain and 
rights to defend, for which we were in duty bound to do our 
best, even if we perished in the endeavor." And now that 
this belief was verified, he declared : " I did only what my 
duty demanded. I could have taken no other course without 
dishonor. And if all were to be done over again, I should 
act in precisely the same manner." And when those about 
him mourned the great disaster, he said : " Yes, that is all 
very sad, and might be a cause of self-reproach, but that we 
are conscious that we have humbly tried to do our duty. We 
may, therefore, with calm satisfaction, trust in God, and leave 
results to him." 

(23) 



Lee thoroughly understood and thoroughly accepted the 
situation. He realized fully that the war had settled, settled 
forever, the peculiar issues which had embroiled it ; but he 
knew also that only time could dissipate its rankling passions 
and restore freedom ; and hence it was he taught that " Si- 
lence and patience on the part of the South was the true 
course" — silence, because it was vain to speak when preju- 
dice ran too high for our late enemies to listen — patience, 
because it was the duty of the hour to labor for recuperation 
and wait for reconciliation. And murmuring no vain sigh 
over the " might have been," which now could not be, con- 
scious that our destinies were irrevocably bound up with 
those of the perpetual Union, he lifted high over the fallen 
standards of war the banner of the Prince of Peace, embla- 
zoned with " On earth peace, good will toward men." 

The President and Congress of the United States made 
conditions of pardon and absolution. They were harsh and 
exacting. The mass of the people affected by them, of neces- 
sity Jiad to accept them. Therefore he would share their 
humiliation. Accordingly he asked amnesty. But his letter 
was never answered. He was indicted for treason. He ap- 
peared ready to answer the charge. But the Government 
now revolted from an act of treachery so base, for his parole 
at Appomattox protected him. Thus was he reviled and har- 
assed, yet never a word of bitterness escaped him ; but, on 
the contrary, only counsels of forbearance, patience, and dili- 
gent attention to works of restoration. Many sought new 
homes in foreign lands, but not so he. "All good citizens," 
he said, " must unite in honest efforts to obliterate the effects 
of war, and to restore the blessings of peace. They must not 
abandon their country, but go to work and build up its pros- 
perity." "The young men especially must stay at home, 
bearing themselves in such a manner as to gain the esteem of 
every one, at the same time that they maintain their own re- 
spect." " It should be the object of all to avoid controversy, 
to allay passion, and give scope to every kindly feeling." " It 
is wisest not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the 
example of those nations who have endeavored to obliterate 

(24) 



the marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion the feel- 
ings it engendered." 

"True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act exactly 
contrary at one period to that which it does at another, and 
the motive that impels them, the desire to do right, is pre- 
cisely the same. The circumstances which govern their 
actions change, and their conduct must conform to the 
new order of things. History is full of illustrations of this. 
Washington himself is an example of this. At one time 
he fought against the French under Braddock ; at another 
time he fought with the French at Yorktown, under the 
orders of the Continental Congress of America, against 
him. He has not been branded by the world vv^ith reproach 
for this, but his course has been applauded." These are 
some of the wise and temperate counsels with which he 
pointed out the duties of the hour. 

Nor was he lacking in faithful remembrance of the Presi- 
dent of the Confederacy, who, for months and months after 
surrender, lay sick and in prison, and who seemed to be 
singled out to undergo vicarious punishment for the deeds 
of the people. "Mr. Davis," truly said General Lee, "did 
nothing more than all the citizens of the Southern States, 
and should not be held accountable for acts performed by 
them, in the exercise of what had been considered by them 
unquestionable right." None are more conscious of this fact 
than those against whom Jefferson Davis directed the Con- 
federate arms; and that he yet, nearly twenty years after 
strife has ceased, should be disfranchised in a land that 
vaunts its freedom, for so doing, is a grievance, and a grief 
to every honorable Southern man. He himself is honored 
by this significant mark of hostile memory. He can not 
suffer by the ignoble act. Only they who do it are deeply 
shamed. And that it is done, only shows the weakness of 
representatives who have not read the very title-page in the 
book of human nature, and who, vainly conceiving that an 
insult to one man can be fruitful of any public good, only 
illustrate the saying of Madame de Stael, " that the strongest / 
of all antipathies is that of second-rate minds for a first-rate { 

(25) ^ 



one," and that other maxim of Edmund Burke, that " great 
empires and Httle minds go ill together." When Mark An- 
tony, the great triumvir of Rome, who conquered Egypt, was 
himself overthrown by Octavius Csesar, he gloried dying that 
he " had conquered as a Roman, and was by a Roman nobly 
conquered." If the spirit of those brave soldiers of the 
Union, who, while the fields of battle were yet moist with 
blood, saluted Lee, had guided the conduct of the civilians 
to whom their valor gave the reins of State, it would have 
been for us Confederates who achieved great victories, and 
were in turn cast down, to have gloried likewise, that we 
in our time had conquered as Americans and were by 
Americans nobly conquered. But when we recall that our 
honored and faithful President is disfranchised simply be- 
cause he was our chief, and bravely, ably served our cause, 
the iron enters our soul and represses the generous emotions 
that well up in them. And we can only lament that shallow 
politicians have proven unworthy of the American name, 
and are not imbued with the great free spirit of a great free 
people. We have not a thought or fancy or desire to undo 
the perpetuity of the Union. For any man to pretend to 
think otherwise is proclamation of his falsehood, or his folly. 
But we intend to be free citizens of the Union, accepting 
no badge of inferiority or dishonor. And by the tomb of 
our dead hero, who was true to his chief, as to every trust, 
we protest to mankind against this unjust thing — an offense 
to our liberties and to our manhood, which are not less 
sacred than the grave. 

And we waft to him, our late Chief Magistrate, in his 
Southern home, our greetings and our blessings ; and as 
the years grow thick upon him, we pray that he may find 
in the unabated confidence and affection of his people some 
solace for all that he has borne for them ; and in the strength 
that Cometh from on high, a staff that man cannot take from 
him. 

While General Lee thus sustained and cheered his coun- 
trymen, the problem soon began to press, what should he do 
with himself? And had he been in any sense a self-seeker, 

(26) 



the solution had been easy, for many were the overtures and 
proffers made to him in every form of interested solicitation 
and disinterested generosity. Would he seek recreation from 
the trials which for years had strained every energy of mind 
and body and every emotion of his heart — the palaces of Eu- 
ropean nobility, the homes of the Old World and the New, 
alike opened their doors to him as a welcome and honored 
guest. Would he prolong his militaiy career — more than 
one potentate would have been proud to receive into his ser- 
vice his famous sword. Would he retrieve his fortunes and 
surround his declining years with luxury and wealth — he 
had but to yield the sanction of his name to any one of the 
many enterprises that commercial princes commended to his 
favor, with every assurance of munificent reward. And in- 
deed, were he willing to accept, unlimited means were placed 
at his disposal by those who would have been proud to 
render him any service. 

But it had been the principle of Lee's life to accept no gra- 
tuitous offer. He had declined the gift of a home tendered 
to him by the citizens of Richmond during the war, when 
Arlington had been confiscated, and the refuge of his family, 
the " White House," had been burned, expressing the hope 
that those who offered the gift would devote the means re- 
quired "to the relief of the families of our soldiers in the 
field, who are more deserving of assistance and more in want 
of it than myself." And now, when an English nobleman 
presented him as a retreat a splendid countiy-seat in Eng- 
land, with a handsome annuity to correspond, he answered: 
"I am deeply grateful, but I cannot consent to desert my 
native State in the hour of her adversity. I must abide 
her fortunes and share her fate." And declining also the 
many positions with lucrative salaries which were urged upon 
his acceptance, it was his intention to locate in one of the 
Southside counties of Virginia, " upon a small farm where he 
might earn his daily bread " in cultivating the soil, and at 
the same time to write a history of his campaigns; "not," 
as he said, "to vindicate myself, and promote my own repu- 
tation, but to show the world what our poor boys, with their 

(27) 



small numbers and scant resources, had succeeded in accom- 
plishing." 

But circumstances, then to him unknown, were bringing an 
event to pass which turned over a new and unexpected leaf in 
his history — an event which made a little scion of knowledge 
which had been nurtured amid the storms of the Colonial 
Revolution, a great and noble University, and which now has 
associated in the glorious work of education, as in glorious 
deeds of arms, the twin names of Washington and Lee. 

It was nearly a century after the settlement at Jamestown 
that Governor Spotswood of Virginia, at the head of a troop 
of horse, first explored the hitherto unknown land beyond 
the mountains, and upon his return from the expedition the 
Governor presented to each of his bold companions a golden 
horseshoe, inscribed with the legend, " Sic jurat transcendere 
monies" as a memorial of the event, a circumstance which 
caused them to be named in history " The Knights of the 
Golden Horseshoe." In August, 1716, these adventurous 
spirits first looked down from the heights of the Blue Ridge 
upon the beautiful valley of Virginia — a virgin land indeed, 
tenanted only by the roving red men. Glorious must have 
been the thrill of joy that quickened their hearts, as the 
tempting vision lay spread before them, as their eyes ranged 
over the fields and forests of this new land of promise in its 
summer sheen — a land watered with many rivers, and espe- 
cially with that beautiful and abounding river " the Shenan- 
doah," which the Indians named " The Daughter of the 
Stars." 

But prophetic as may have been the glance that saw in the 
fruitful valley the future home of a great and thriving people, 
slow were the footsteps that followed the pioneers and occu- 
pied the hunting-grounds of the receding Indians. For in 
those days immigration was not quickened by steam and 
electricity, and early tradition had pictured the transmontane 
country as a barren and gloomy waste, infested with serpents 
and wild beasts and brutal savages. 

But erewhile the reports of Spotswood and his men went 
far and wide, and the star of empire beamed over the Alle- 

(28) 



ghanies. And along in 1730 and 1740 we find the spray of 
the incoming tide breaking over the mountains — the sturdy 
Scotch-Irish for the most part, with some Germans and Eng- 
hshmen, pouring into the valley from Pennsylvania and East- 
ern Virginia, and from the fatherlands over the water. Not 
speculative adventurers were they, with the ambition of land- 
lords, but bringing with them rifle and Bible, wife and child, 
and simple household goods ; home-seekers and home-build- 
ers, who had heard of the goodly land, and who had come to 
stay, and who built the meeting-house and the school-house 
side by side when they came. Rough men were they, ready 
to hew their way to free and pleasant homes, but in no wise 
coarse men, for they were filled with high purpose, and reli- 
gion and knowledge they knew should be handmaids of each 
other. And, showing their instinctive refinement, where the 
corn waved its tassels and the wheat bowed to the wind by 
their rude log huts in the wilderness, there also the vine 
clambered and the rose and lily bloomed. 

In 1749, near Greenville, in Augusta county — and Augusta 
county was then an empire stretching from the Blue Ridge 
mountains to the Mississippi river — in 1749, Robert Alexan- 
der, a Scotch-Irish immigrant, who was a Master of Arts of 
Trinity College, Dublin, established there "The Augusta 
Academy" — the first classical school in the Valley of Vir- 
ginia. Under his successor, Rev. John Brown, the academy 
was first moved to "Old Providence," and again to "New 
Providence Church," and just before the Revolution, for a 
third time, to Mount Pleasant, near Fairfield, in the now 
county of Rockbridge. 

In 1776, as the Revolutionary fires were kindling, there 
came to its head as principal, William Graham, of worthy 
memory, who had been a classmate and special friend of 
Harry Lee at Princeton College ; and at the first meeting 
of the trustees after the battle of Lexington, while Harry 
Lee was donning his sword for battle, they baptized it as 
" Liberty Hall Academy." Another removal followed, in 
1777, to near the old Timber Ridge Church; but finally, in 
1785, the academy rested from its wanderings near Lexing- 

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ton, the little town which too had caught the flame of revo- 
lution, and was the first to take the name of that early battle- 
ground of the great rebellion, where 

"The embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world." 

Shortly after the close of the Revolutionary war, the Legis- 
lature of Virginia, in token of esteem and admiration for the 
virtues and services of General George Washington, donated 
him one hundred shares of stock in the old James River 
Company. General Washington, in a characteristic manner, 
declined to accept the donation save only on the condition 
that he be permitted to appropriate it to some public purpose 
"in the upper part of the State," such as "the education of 
the children of the poor, particularly the children of such 
as have fallen in defense of the country." The condition 
granted. President Washington in 1796 — for he had then 
become president of the new republic — dedicated the one 
hundred shares of stock " to the use of liberty Hall Acad- 
emy in Rockbridge county." Mayhap the friendship be- 
tween William Graham, its principal, and his old classmate 
at Princeton, " Light-Horse Harry " Lee, the friend of Wash- 
ington, had something to do in guiding the benefaction ; but 
be this as it may, it was given and accepted, and in honor of 
the benefactor the academy was clothed with his immortal 
name. 

In acknowledging the thanks expressed to him by the 
Board of Trustees, President Washington said : " To promote 
literature in this rising empire and to encourage the arts has 
ever been amongst the warmest wishes of my heart; and if 
the donation which the generosity of the Legislature of the 
Commonwealth has enabled me to bestow upon Liberty Hall 
— now by your politeness called Washington Academy — is 
likely to prove a means to accomplish these ends, it will con- 
tribute to the gratification of my desires." 

Soon after this, the Legislature, which had already incorpo- 
rated the institution on a comprehensive basis, gave it the 
name of " The College of Washington in Virginia." In the 

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spirit of their beloved commander, the "Society of the Cin- 
cinnati," composed of survivors of the Revolutionary war, on 
dissolving in 1803, donated their funds, amounting to nearly 
^$25,000, to the institution which had received his patronage 
and bore his name; and, thus endowed, the "College of 
Washington " went forward in a career which, for nearly 
threescore years and ten, was a period of uninterrupted use- 
fulness, prosperity, and honor. 

All ranks of honorable enterprise and ambition " in this 
rising empire" felt the impress of the noble spirits who came 
forth from its halls, trained and equipped for life's arduous 
tasks with keenest weapons and brightest armor. What 
glowing names are these that shine on the rolls of the alumni 
of this honored Alma Mater ! Church and state, field and 
forum, bar and bench, hospital and counting-room, lecture- 
room and pulpit — what famous champions and teachers of 
the right, what trusty workers and leaders in literature and 
law, and arts, and arms, have they not found in her sons ! 
Seven Governors of States — amongst them Crittenden, of 
Kentucky, and McDowell, Letcher, and Kemper, of Vir- 
ginia; eleven United States Senators — amongst them Par- 
ker, of Virginia, Breckinridge, of Kentucky, H. S. Foote, of 
Mississippi, and William C. Preston, of South Carolina ; more 
than a score of Congressmen, twoscore and more of judges 
— amongst them Trimble, of the United States Supreme 
Court; Coalter, Allen, Anderson, and Burks, of the Court 
of Appeals of Virginia ; twelve or more college presidents, 
and amongst them Moses Hoge and Archibald Alexander, 
of Hampden-Sidney, James Priestly, of Cumberland College, 
Tennessee, and G. A. Baxter and Henry Ruffner (who pre- 
sided here), and Socrates Maupin, of the University of Vir- 
ginia. These are but a few of those who here garnered the 
learning that shed so gracious a light in the after-time on 
them, their country, and their Alma Mater. And could I 
pause to speak of those who became valiant leaders of men 
in battle I could name many a noble soldier whose eye greets 
mine to-day ; and, alas ! I should recall the form of many a 
hero who passed from these halls in the flush of youthful 

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manhood, and has long slept with the " unreturning brave;" 
for in 1 86 1, when the calls to arms resounded, "The Liberty- 
Hall Volunteers" — the students of Washington College — 
were among the first (and in a body) to respond ; and when 
the quiet professor of your twin Institute was baptized in 
history as " Stonewall Jackson," their blood o'erflowed the 
christening urn and reddened Manassas' field; and from 
Manassas to Appomattox, under Joseph E. Johnston, and 
Thomas J. Jackson, and Robert E. Lee, the boys and the 
men of Washington College proved that they were worthy 
of their leaders, worthy of their State and Country, and 
worthy of all good fame. 

Unsparing war spared not the shrine where, breathed into 
the arts of peace, yet lived the spirit and was perpetuated the 
name of the Father of his Country. When in 1864, David 
Hunter led an invading army against the State from whose 
blood he sprung, he came not as comes the noble champion, 
eager to strike the strong, and who realizes that he meets an 
equal and a generous foe. Lee had penetrated the year be- 
fore to the heart of Pennsylvania, and the Southern infantry 
had bivouacked on the banks of the Susquehanna. When he 
crossed the Pennsylvania line, he had announced in general 
orders from the headquarters of the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia, that he did not come to " take vengeance " ; that " we 
make war only upon armed men," and he therefore " ear- 
nestly exhorted the troops to abstain with most scrupulous 
care from unnecessary or wanton injury of private property," 
and "enjoined upon all officers to arrest and bring to sum- 
mary punishment all who should in any way offend against 
the orders on the subject." He had been obeyed by his lieu- 
tenants and his men. No charred ruins, no devastated fields, 
no plundered homes, marked the line of his march. On one 
occasion, to set a good example, he was seen to dismount 
from his horse and put up a farmer's fence. In the city of 
York, General Early had in general orders prohibited the 
burning of buildings containing stores of war, lest fire might 
be communicated to neighboring homes ; and General Gor- 
don, in his public address, had declared : " If a torch is ap- 

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plied to a single dwelling, or an insult offered to a female of 
your town by a soldier of this command, point me out the 
man, and you shall have his life." The battle of Gettysburg 
had raged around Gettysburg College, but when it ended 
the college stood scathless, save by the accidents of war. 
But when David Hunter invaded Virginia, he came to make 
war on the weak and helpless, and he was as ruthless to ruin 
as he was swift to evade battle and to retreat. He blistered 
the land which he should have loved and honored, and a 
broad, black path marked his trail. From the summit of 
those mountains, where Spotswood first spied the valley, 
could be counted at one time the flames ascending from a 
hundred and eighteen burning houses. The Virginia Mili- 
tary Institute was burned, and the very statue of Washington 
which adorned it was carried off as a trophy. Washington 
College was dismantled, its scientific apparatus destroyed, 
its library sacked, its every apartment pillaged. The hand of 
war indeed fell heavily here, and when the Southern cause 
went down at Appomattox, Washington College remained 
scarce more than a ruinous and desolate relic of better days. 
Four professors, a handful of students, and the bare build- 
ings were all that was left of it. 

In August, 1865, the trustees of Washington College met. 
The situation they contemplated was deplorable and depress- 
ing. Their invested funds were unproductive. Their treasury 
was empty. The State was prostrate and bankrupt. In the 
sky of the future there was scarcely a ray of light. But they 
were resolved to face difficulties, and to do the best they 
could. One of the trustees. Colonel Bolivar Christian, of 
Staunton, suggested that General Lee be invited to accept the 
presidency of the institution. There was but little anticipa- 
tion that he would incline to their wishes. The position 
could not be very remunerative — it involved tedious and 
perplexing tasks, and it did not seem commensurate with the 
abilities, nor altogether fitting to the tastes of a great com- 
mander who had so long dealt with the vast and active con- 
cerns of military life ; but the suggestion was unanimously 
adopted, and Hon. John W, Brockenbrough, rector of the 

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board, was appointed to apprise General Lee of the fact. At 
first General Lee hesitated. He modestly distrusted his own 
competency to fulfil the trust, and he feared that the hos- 
tility of the Government towards him might direct adverse 
influences against the institution which it was proposed to 
commit to his care. These considerations being successfully 
combated by those who knew how high his qualifications 
were, and how great were his attractions. General Lee ac- 
cepted the position tendered him, and on the 20th of Oc- 
tober, 1865, he appeared before the Rev. W. S. White — the 
oldest Christian minister of Lexington — took the oath of 
office, and assumed the duties of president of Washington 
College. On the eve of acceptance, two propositions were 
made to General Lee : one to become president of a large 
corporation, with a salary of ;^ 10,000 per annum; another to 
take the like office in another corporation, with a salary of 
;^50,ooo. But he had made up his mind to come here, and 
this is what he said to a friend who brought him the last 
munificent offer : — 

" I have a self-imposed task which I must accomplish. I 
have led the young men of the South in battle ; I have seen 
many of them fall under my standard. I shall devote my life 
now to training young men to do their duty in life." 

This was the high resolve that brought him here, and if 
Robert E. Lee seemed the great, heroic captain when he 
stood before the Virginia Convention with superb courage 
and dauntless mien, and " devoted his sword to his native 
State," he seemed informed with a spirit that gathered its 
strength and loveliness from Heaven, when he stood here 
and consecrated his remaining years to training up to life's 
duties the sons, brothers, and comrades of those who had 
followed him in battle. Young men of the South ! To him 
who thus stood by us, we owe a debt immeasurable, and as 
long as our race is upon the earth, let our children and our 
children's children hold that debt sacred. 

General Lee was eminently qualified for the task assumed. 
His own education had been liberal and thorough. In his 
youth he had been grounded by his tutors in a knowledge of 

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ancient histoiy, and of the dead languages, the Latin and the 
Greek, and the tastes thus early stimulated had been pre- 
served and cultivated in after years. As a cadet at West 
Point he graduated second in a distinguished class, excel- 
lence of conduct and excellence of attainment going hand 
in hand. Appointed an officer of engineers when he en- 
tered the army, and often charged with most important 
works, the duties devolved upon him required assiduous 
study and research. Still later, after he returned with great 
distinction from Mexico, he became the Superintendent and 
Commandant of the Military Academy at West Point, and, 
occupying that position for three years, he acquired experi- 
ence and developed capacities which singularly fitted him 
for the sphere which he now entered — the training of youth. 
It is indicative of his comprehensive views of education, that 
during his superintendency at West Point, the course of study 
was extended to five years and greatly enlarged in its scope. 
And when he entered upon his duties here, it was soon evi- 
dent that he possessed every qualification to direct with signal 
success the affairs of the institution, and to mould the char- 
acters and minds of those confided to his care. 

It was understood from the time of his inauguration that 
he would not himself act as teacher of any class; but would 
have in charge the business and financial concerns of the 
College — its educational curriculum, and the discipline of 
its students; and from first to last, he devoted himself to 
these tasks with unceasing assiduity and success. 

Everything here felt, with his presence, a renovating and 
progressive impulse. Nothing escaped his attention, from 
the smallest detail of business to the gravest question of 
educational policy; and in whatever concerned the well- 
being of the College, its faculty and its students, his dis- 
cerning judgment and his sympathetic heart worked out the 
right result. Under his supervision the buildings were re- 
paired, the accommodations enlarged, the chemical and phil- 
osophical apparatus replaced, the library replenished and re- 
formed. He it was who selected the site of yon chapel 
which now guards his mortal remains — his was the hand 

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that drafted the plan, and his the eye that saw its parts 
conjoined together. No figure-head was he, but a worker 
and doer, bringing things to pass as they should be. 

Prior to his administration, there were but five Chairs of 
Instruction, several departments being combined under one 
professional head : 

1. Mental and Moral Science, and Political Economy. 

2. Latin Language and Literature. 

3. Greek Language and Literature. 

4. Mathematics and Physical Science. 

5. Chemistry and Natural Philosophy. 

Speedily after his accession, three new chairs were added, 
and professors elected to fill them ; the Chair of Natural Phil- 
osophy, embracing, in addition to Physics, Acoustics, Optics, 
etc., the various subjects of Natural and Applied Mechanics; 
the Chair of Applied Mathematics, embracing Astronomy, 
Civil and Military Engineering ; and the Chair of Modern 
Languages, to which was added English Philosophy. In the 
second year of his incumbency the Chair of History and Eng- 
lish Literature was established, and soon afterwards the de- 
partment of "Law and Equity," under that eminent jurist, 
Judge John W. Brockenbrough. 

Several other chairs were included in the president's pro- 
gramme, one of the " English Language," one of " Applied 
Chemistry," and also a "School of Medicine," a "School of 
Journalism," and a "School of Commerce " — the latter being 
designed to give special instruction and systematic training in 
whatever pertained to business in the most enlarged sense of 
the term. Amongst other changes introduced by General 
Lee was the substitution of the elective system instead of a 
fixed curriculum ; and the system of discipline which he 
adopted, in no wise partaking of the military type, to which 
it might have been supposed his disposition would incline — 
was that which has so long prospered at the University of 
Virginia ; a system which ignored espionage and compulsion, 
and put every student upon a manly sense of honor; — a sys- 
tem which, especially with young men not too immature to 
appreciate it, and which, with all men who have the capacity 

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of being gentlemen, is the best calculated to develop the vir- 
tuous and independent elements of character. Here for five 
years the General devoted himself to the cause of education, 
and here under him that cause nobly flourished. Here he 
demonstrated that comprehensive grasp of every subject con- 
nected with his sphere ; and the keen apprehension of the de- 
mands of this progressive age, and of a land entering as it 
were upon a new birth. His associates in the faculty loved 
him as an elder brother ; the students revered and loved him 
as a father ; and all who saw or knew his work, with common 
voice proclaimed the conviction expressed by one of the most 
distinguished of his associates, that he was " the best College 
President that this country has ever produced." 

His work has been established, and though the great chief 
has " fallen by the way," one who bears his name, and who is 
worthy of it, has taken up the lines that fell from his hands ; 
and under him, with God's blessing, the good cause goes on 
prospering and to prosper. 

And so happily it has come to pass that the little school of 
the pioneers, planted in the wilderness, is to-day a great uni- 
versity ; that the ambition of William Graham, the college- 
mate of Harry Lee, has been realized beyond its sweetest 
dream; that the college which the Father of his Country 
lifted up by his generosity from a struggling academy to 
educate the children of those who had fallen in its defense, 
and which was blighted to the verge of destruction, has been 
restored and magnified by the hand of him who alone of all 
men, living or dead, now equally shares with his illustrious 
prototype the eulogy pronounced by his own sire, Light- 
Horse Harry Lee : ''First in Peace, first in War, and first in 
the hearts of his Countrymen." 

Thus feebly and imperfectly have I attempted to trace the 
military achievements and services of him to whose memory 
this day is dedicated. Lee the General stands abreast with 
the greatest captains of all time, and Lee the Patriot has uni- 
versal homage. It is now of Lee the Man that I would speak. 
In personal appearance, General Lee was a man whom once 
to see was ever to remember. His figure was tall, erect, well 

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proportioned, lithe, and graceful. A fine head, with broad, 
uplifted brow, and features boldly, but yet delicately chiseled, 
bore the high aspect of one born to command. The firm yet 
mobile lips, and the thick-set jaw, were expressive of daring 
and resolution ; and the dark scintillant eye flashed with the 
light of a brilliant intellect and a fearless spirit. His whole 
countenance, indeed, bespoke alike a powerful mind and in- 
domitable will, yet beamed with charity, gentleness, and be- 
nevolence. In his manners, quiet reserve, unaffected courtesy, 
and native dignity, made manifest the character of one who 
can only be described by the name of gentleman. And, 
taken all in all, his presence possessed that grave and simple 
majesty which commanded instant reverence and repressed 
familiarity; and yet so charmed by a certain modesty and 
gracious deference, that reverence and confidence were ever 
ready to kindle into affection. It was impossible to look 
upon him, and not to recognize at a glance that in him nature 
gave assurance of a man created great and good. 

Mounted in the field and at the head of his troops, a 
glimpse of Lee was an inspiration. His figure was as dis- 
tinctive as that of Napoleon. Ah ! soldiers ! who can forget 
it? The black slouched hat; the cavalry boots; the dark 
cape ; the plain gray coat without an ornament but the three 
stars on the collar ; the calm, victorious face ; the splendid, 
manly figure on the gray war-horse, that steps as if proudly 
conscious of his rider ; he looked every inch the true knight 
— the grand, invincible champion of a great principle. 

The intellectual abilities of General Lee were of the highest 
order, and his attainments, scientific and literary, were re- 
markable for one who had devoted so many years of his 
life to the exacting duties and details of the camp and the 
field. He read much, digested what he read, and amplified 
his readings with reflective power. But so modest and 
unpretentious was he — so chastened and retiring was his 
ambition, and his overshadowing military exploits had so 
fixed the admiring gaze of men, that when he came here 
few knew how rare were the accomplishments, and how 
versatile and adaptive was the genius of the gentleman 

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who seemed by nature framed to lead the ranks and grace 
the habiliments of war. The training, habits, and occupa- 
tions of the soldier seldom guide his footsteps to classic 
haunts, and when the great captain is unhorsed and his trap- 
pings disappear, how often do we find that the soldier was 
a soldier only, and nothing more. But when Lee the soldier 
stepped forth in civic dress, it was soon evident to all, as it 
had been previously to those who knew him best, that here 
was one full panoplied to dignify and adorn any civic sta- 
tion ; one who disclosed himself in wide converse and cor- 
respondence embracing all manner of delicate and difficult 
situations, to possess that quality which is the consummate 
flower of wisdom — unerring judgment combined with exquisite 
taste. The literature that may be found in the letters of the 
great unfolds the very essence of the genius of the men, and 
of the times they lived in ; and in my humble judgment it 
were sufficient to read the letters written by General Lee, and 
which are collated in the beautiful memorial volume prepared 
by Rev. Dr. J. William Jones, to discern that the writer was 
one who profoundly comprehended the topics of the day, and 
wielded a pen as vigorous and polished as his sword. And 
when we contemplate in connection with his deeds the fair 
and lofty character that is mirrored in them, we behold one 
whose strong, equitable, and wide-reaching mind was such 
that, had he devoted it to jurisprudence, had made the name 
of justice as venerable and august as when a Marshall enun- 
ciated the law ; who, had he been a statesman, had moulded 
the institutions of his country, and guided its political cur- 
rents, with as wise, firm, and temperate a hand as that of 
Washington ; who, had he headed any of the great corporate 
enterprises of transportation, commerce, or development in 
which aggregated capital relies on scientific sagacity for 
great works, had greatly aided the solution of many per- 
plexing problems that now agitate the public mind; who, 
had he bent himself to literature, had produced a page filled 
with the glory and dignity of philosophic inquiry or historic 
truth; — one indeed so perfectly balanced in mind and will, 
so nobly turned in moral worth, so just in heart, so clear 

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in thought, and so authoritative in direction, that, in any 
land where the common sentiment can have spontaneous 
play, would, as inevitably as the sparks fly upward, and by 
a law scarce less fixed than that which moves the planets in 
their course, have been the leading man in whatever he un- 
dertook, and would have been called by one voice to become 
the chief magistrate of the people. 

As little things make up the sum of life, so they reveal the 
inward nature of men and furnish keys to history. It is in 
the office, the street, the field, the workshop, and by the fire- 
side, that men show what stuff they are made of, not less than 
in those eventful actions which write themselves in lightnings 
across the skies and mark the rise and fall of nations. Nay, 
more ; the highest attributes of human nature are not dis- 
closed in action but in self-restraint and repose. " Self- 
restraint," as has been truly said by Thomas Hughes, " is the 
highest form of self-assertion." 

It is harder, as every soldier knows, to lie down and take 
the fire of batteries without returning it, than to rise and 
charge to the cannon's mouth. It is harder to give the soft 
answer that turns away wrath than to retort a word with a 
blow. De Long, in the frozen Arctic wastes, dying alone 
inch by inch of cold and starvation, yet intent on his work, 
and writing lines for the benefit of others, deserved as well 
as the Marshal of France, who received it, the name of " the 
bravest of the brave." The artless little Alabama girl, who 
was guiding General Forrest along a dangerous path when 
the enemy fired a volley upon him, and who instinctively 
spread her skirts, and cried : " Get behind me ! " had a spirit 
as high as that which filled the bosom of Joan of Arc or 
Charlotte Corday, 

The little Holland boy, who, seeing the water oozing 
through the dyke, and the town near by about to be deluged 
and destroyed, neither cried nor ran, but stopped, and all 
alone stifled the opening gap with earth, in instant peril of 
being swept to death unhonored and unknown, showed a 
finer and nobler fibre than that of Cambronne when he 
shouted to the conquering British: "The Guard dies, but 

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never surrenders." The soldier of Pompeii, buried at his 
post, — standing there, and flying not from the hot waves of 
lava that rolled over him, — tells the Roman story in grander 
language than the ruins of the Coliseum. And Herndon, on 
the deck of his ship, doing all to save his passengers, making 
deliberate choice of death before dishonor, and going down 
into the great deep with brow calm and unruffled, is a 
grander picture of true heroic temper than that of Caesar 
leading his legions, or of the young Corsican at the Bridge 
of Lodi. 

Amongst the quiet, nameless workers of the world — in the 
stubble-field, and by the forge, bending over a sick child's bed 
or smoothing an outcast's pillow, is many a hero and heroine 
truer, nobler than those over whose brows hang plumes and 
laurels. 

In action there is the stimulus of excited physical faculties, 
and of the moving passions — but in the composure of the 
calm mind that quietly devotes itself to hard life-work — put- 
ting aside temptations, contemplating and rising superior to 
all surroundings of adversity, suffering danger and death, — 
man is revealed in his highest manifestation. Then, and then 
alone, he seems to have redeemed his fallen state, and to be 
recreated in God's image. At the bottom of all true heroism 
is unselfishness. Its crowning expression is sacrifice. The 
world is suspicious of vaunted heroes. They are so easily 
manufactured. So many feet are cut and trimmed to fit 
Cinderella's slippers that we hesitate long before we hail the 
Princess. But when the true hero has come, and we know 
that here he is, in verity, ah ! how the hearts of men leap 
forth to greet him — how worshipfully we welcome God's 
noblest work — the strong, honest, fearless, upright man. 

In Robert Lee was such a hero vouchsafed to us and to 
mankind, and whether we behold him declining command of 
the Federal army to fight the battles and share the miseries 
of his own people ; proclaiming on the heights in front of 
Gettysburg that the fault of the disaster was his own ; leading 
charges in the crises of combat ; walking under the yoke of 
conquest without a murmur of complaint; or refusing for- 

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tunes to come here and train the youth of his country in the 
path of duty, — he is ever the same meek, grand, self-sacrific- 
ing spirit. Here he exhibited quahties not less worthy and 
heroic than those displayed on the broad and open theatre of 
conflict, when the eyes of nations watched his every action. 
Here, in the calm repose of civil and domestic duties, and in 
the trying routine of incessant tasks, he lived a life as high as 
when, day by day, he marshalled and led his thin and wast- 
ing lines, and slept by night upon the field that was to be 
drenched again in blood upon the morrow. 

Here in these quiet walks, far removed from "war or bat- 
tle's sound," came into view, — as when the storm o'erpast the 
mountain seems a pinnacle of light, the landscape beams with 
fresher and tenderer beauties, and the purple, golden clouds 
float above us in the azure depths like the Islands of the 
Blest, — so came into view the towering grandeur, the mas- 
sive splendor, and the loving kindness of the character of 
General Lee, and the very sorrows that overhung his life 
seemed luminous with celestial hues. Here he revealed in 
manifold gracious hospitalities, tender charities, and patient, 
worthy counsels, how deep and pure and inexhaustible were 
the fountains of his virtues. And loving hearts delight to re- 
call, as loving lips will ever delight to tell, the thousand little 
things he did which sent forth lines of light to irradiate the 
gloom of the conquered land, and to lift up the hopes and 
cheer the works of the people. 

Was there a scheme of public improvement? He took 
hearty interest in promoting its success in every way he 
could. Was there an enterprise of charity, or education, or 
religion, that needed friendly aid ? He gave it according to 
his store, and sent with the gift words that were deeds. Was 
there a poor soldier in distress ? Whoever else forgot him, it 
was not Lee. Was there a proud spirit chafing under defeat, 
and breaking forth in angry complaints and criminations, or a 
wanderer who had sought in other lands an unvexed retreat 
denied him here? He it was who with mild voice conjured 
restraint and patience — recalled the wanderer home and 
reared above the desolate hearthstone the image of duty. 

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And whosoever mourned the loved and lost, who had died 
in vain for the cause now perished, he it was who poured into 
the stricken heart the balm of sympathy and consolation. 

Here, indeed, Lee, no longer the Leader, became as it were 
the Priest of his people, and the young men of Washington 
College were but a fragment of those who found in his voice 
and his example the shining signs that never misguided their 
footsteps. 

Many are the illustrations and incidents which show how 
beautifully blended in his character were the sterner qualities 
that command respect, with the gentler traits that engage af- 
fection. And his quick apprehension of every natural beauty, 
and keen sympathy for all living things, show the exquisite 
sensibilities of his heart. His letters from Mexico teem with 
expressions of the delight with which he looked upon the 
bright-winged birds and luxuriant flowers of that sunny land ; 
and, during the Confederate war, when cramped resources de- 
nied bestowal of the smallest tokens of friendship, we find his 
letters to dear ones frequently laden with the floral emblems 
of his constant thought and love. In one of them he says : 
" I send you some sweet violets that I gathered for you this 
morning while covered with the dense white frost whose 
crystals glittered in the bright sun like diamonds, and formed 
a brooch of rare beauty and sweetness which could not be 
fabricated by the expenditure of a world of money." 

And when after the war he visited Alexandria, the scene 
of his boyhood days, one of his old neighbors found him 
gazing over the palings of the garden where he used to play. 
" I am looking," he said, " to see if the old snow-ball trees 
are still here. I should be sorry to miss them." How he 
loved, too, these grand mountains ! Amongst them, mounted 
on his faithful war-horse Traveller, he often roamed while he 
spent his days amongst you. And here in nature's works he 
found refreshment from the toils of life, and looked from 
nature up to nature's God. 

His tenderness was as instinctive as his valor. A writer, 
who on one occasion stood in his company watching a fire m 
the mountains, relates how, when others were wrapt in its 

(43) 



scenic grandeur, General Lee remarked : " It is beautiful ! but 
I have been thinking of the poor animals that must perish in 
the flames." And another tells how, when in the lines near 
Richmond the bolts of battle swept the point where the Gen- 
eral stood, he ordered his attendants to the rear, and while 
himself calmly surveying the field under fire, he stopped to 
pick up a fledgling sparrow that had fallen from its nest, and 
restore it to the bough overhead. 

Pictures, are these, full of infinite suggestion ! 

A Robespierre and a Torquemada may exhibit emotional 
tenderness, shallow and fitful, but that of Lee was the vital 
principle of a robust, exalted nature, which found its inspira- 
tions in the sacred heart of charity, and diffused itself in 
ceaseless acts of magnanimity and love. 

So it was that while the passions of men were loosened, 
and the fierce work of war spread havoc and desolation far 
and wide, he who directed its tremendous forces with stern 
and nervous hand, moved also amongst its scenes of woe — 
a gracious and healing spirit. So it was that to him a 
stricken foe was a foe no longer — that his orders to the 
surgeons of his army were to " treat the whole field alike " ; 
and when at Chancellorsville he in person led the tempes- 
tuous assault that won the victory, and stood amongst the 
wounded of the blue and gray, heaped around him in indis- 
criminate carnage, his first thought and care were for them 
alike in their common suffering. So it was that whether 
in Pennsylvania, Maryland, or Virginia, he restrained every 
excess of conduct, and held the reckless and the ruthless 
within those bounds which duty sets to action. So it was 
that to one homeless during the days of strife, he wrote : 
" Occupy yourself in helping those more helpless than your- 
self." So it was that when the gallant Federal General Phil. 
Kearny fell at Ox Hill, he sent his sword and horse through 
the lines to his mourning widow ; and that when Lincoln was 
struck down by an assassin's hand, he denounced the deed as 
" a crime previously unknown to the country, and one that 
must be deprecated by every American." And so, too, when 
one day here a man humbly clad sought alms at his door, 

(44) 



Lee pointed to his retiring form and said: "That is one of 
our old soldiers who is in necessitous circumstances. He 
fought on the other side, but we must not remember that 
against him now." And this poor soldier said of him after- 
wards : " He is the noblest man that ever lived. He not only- 
had a kind word for me, but he gave me some money to help 
me on my way." Better is that praise than any garland of 
the poet or the rhetorician. 

As we glance back through the smoke-drifts of his many 
campaigns and battles, his kind, considerate acts towards his 
officers and men gleam through them as brightly as their 
burnished weapons; and they formed a fellowship as noble 
as that which bound the Knights of the Round Table to 
Arthur, "the blameless King." His principle of discipline 
was indicated in his expression that " a true man of honor 
feels himself humbled when he cannot help humbling others," 
and never exercising stern authority except when absolutely 
indispensable, his influence was the more potent because it 
ever appealed to honorable motives and natural affections. 
In the dark days of the Revolution, two major-generals con- 
spired with a faction of the Continental Congress to put Gates 
in the place of Washington, denominating him a " weak gen- 
eral." Never did Confederate dream a disloyal thought of 
Lee, and the greater the disaster, the more his army leaned 
upon him. 

When Jackson fell, Lee wrote to him : " You are better off 
than I am, for while you have lost your left arm, I have lost 
my right arm." And Jackson said of him : " Lee is a phe- 
nomenon. He is the only man that I would follow blind- 
fold." Midway between Petersburg and Appomattox, with 
the ruins of an empire falling on his shoulders, and the gory 
remnants of his army staggering under the thick blows of 
the advancing foe, we see Lee turning aside from the column, 
and riding up to the home of the widow of the gallant 
Colonel John Thornton, who had fallen at Sharpsburg. " I 
have not time to tarry," he says, " but I could not pass by 
without stopping a moment to pay my respects to the widow 
of my honored soldier. Colonel Thornton, and tender her my 

(45) 



deepest sympathy in the sore bereavement she sustained 
when the country was deprived of his invaluable services." 

Three of his sons were there in the army with him ; but 
they were too noble to seek, and he too noble to bestow 
honors, because of the tie of blood. One of them, a private 
in the artillery, served his gun with his fellows. Another he 
is requested by President Davis to assign to command an 
army, but he will not be the medium of exalting his own 
house, though a superior ask that it be done, and though his 
son deserve it. Yet another is in a hostile prison, and a 
Federal officer of equal rank begs that General Lee will effect 
an exchange, the one for the other. The General declined, 
saying, " that he will ask no favor for his own son that could 
not be asked for the humblest private in the army." On the 
cars crowded with passengers a soldier, scarce noticed, strug- 
gles to draw his coat over his wounded arm. One from 
amongst many rises and goes to his aid. It is General Lee. 
An army surgeon relates that while the battle of the Crater 
raged, General Lee rode to the rear of the line where the 
wounded lay, and, dismounting, moved amongst them. 
" Doctor, why are you not doing something for this man," 
he said, pointing to one sorely stricken. The doctor raised 
the gray jacket and pointed to the ghastly wound which 
made life hopeless. General Lee bent tenderly over the 
wounded man, and then, in a voice tremulous with emotion, 
exclaimed: "Alas! poor soldier! may God make soft his 
dying pillow." 

Such were some of the many acts that made the men love 
Lee. And in the fight he was ever ready to be foremost. Lee 
the soldier, over-rode Lee the general, and when the pinch 
and struggle came, there was he. " Lee to the rear " became 
the soldiers' battle-cry ; and oftentimes, when the long lines 
came gleaming on, and shot and shell in tempest ripped the 
earth, uptore the forest, and filled the air with death, these 
soldiers in their rusty rags paused as they saw his face 
amongst them ; and then with manhood's imperious love, 
these sovereigns of the field commanded, " General Lee go 
back," as their condition of advancing. And then forward 

(46) 



to the death ! Was ever such devotion ? Yes, Lee loved his 
men "as a father pitieth his children," and they loved him 
with a love that " passeth the love of woman," for they saw 
in him the iron hero who could lead the brave with front as 
dauntless as a warrior's crest, and the gentle friend who com- 
forted the stricken with soul as tender as a mother's prayer. 

Lee had nothing in common with the little minds that 
know not how to forgive. His was the land that had been 
invaded — his the people who were cut down, ravaged, and 
ruined — his the home that was torn away and spoliated — 
his was the cause that perished. He was the general dis- 
crowned of his mighty place, and he the citizen disfranchised. 
Yet Lee forgave, and counselled all to forgive and forget. 

The Greek poet has said : — 

"The firmest mind will fail 
Beneath misfortune's stroke, and stunned, depart 
From its sage plan of action." 

But as the mind of Lee received the rude shock of destiny 
without a quiver, so the genial currents of his sweet, heroic 
soul rolled on unruffled, while in their calm, pure depths 
were reflected the light of heaven. 

When a minister once denounced the North and the indict- 
ment of General Lee for treason, the General followed him 
to the door, and said : " Doctor, there is a good old book 
which I read, and you preach from, which says : ' Love your 
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that 
hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.' Do 
you think your remarks this evening were quite in the spirit 
of that teaching ?" And he added : " I have fought against 
the people of the North because I believed they were seeking 
to wrest from the South her dearest rights. But I have never 
cherished toward them bitter or vindictive feelings, and have 
never seen the day when I did not pray for them." 

Soon after the passage of those harsh acts of Congress dis- 
franchising Confederates for participating in the war, and 
while every Southern breast was filled with indignation, some 
friends in General Lee's presence expressed themselves with 

(47) 



great bitterness. The General turned to the table near him, 
where lay the manuscript of his father's life, which he was 
then editing, and read these lines : — 

" Learn from yon Orient shell to love thy foe, 
And store with pearls the hand that brings thee woe ; 
Free like yon rock, from base, vindictive pride, 
Emblaze with gems the wrist that rends thy side, 
Mark where yon tree rewards the stony shower, 
With fruit nectareous or the balmy flower ; 
All Nature cries aloud : shall man do less 
Than love the smiter, and the railer bless? " 

" These lines," said he, " were written in Arabia, and by a 
Mohammedan, the Poet of Shiraz, the immortal Hafiz; and 
ought not we, who profess to be governed by the principles 
of Christianity, to rise at least to the standard of this Mo- 
hammedan poet, and learn to forgive our enemies ? " 

In the rush of this age, a character so simply meek and 
so proudly, grandly strong, is scarce compj-ehensible to the 
eager, restless competitors for wealth and place and power. 
And the " practical man," as he is called, who ever keeps a 
keen eye to the main chance, and is esteemed happy just 
in proportion as fortune favors his schemes of ambition or 
profit, is apt to attribute weakness to one so void of self- 
seeking and resentment, and so amiable and gentle in his 
feelings and conduct towards his fellow-men. But could he 
have seen with what patient attention to detail this cease- 
less worker dispatched business and brought great results 
from small materials — with what quick, strong, comprehen- 
sive grasp he solved difficulties and conquered dangers ; what 
good cheer he gave the toiling; what hope he gave the de- 
spondent; what comfort he gave the afflicted; — aye! could 
he have caught the glance of that eagle eye, and looked on 
that serene, bold brow which overawed the field of battle, and 
then beheld the swift, stern, inspiring energy which propelled 
its forces to deeds which seemed almost impossible to man, 
there would have been to him a new revelation. He would 
have beheld a character which, to one unacquainted with it, 
would seem to have been idealized by the genius of the poet 

(48) 



rather than to have existed in the flesh, and to have stepped 
forth from the sanctuary of romance rather than to have be- 
longed to real history. He would have realized, by contact 
with this simple gentleman, that the true greatness and the 
true glory of man lies in those elements which are superior 
to fortune, that he is most practical who is himself above it, 
and that happiness, if ever on earth happiness be found, has 
fixed her temple only in the heart that is without guile and is 
without reproach of man or woman. 

Five years rolled by while here "the self-imposed mission" 
of Lee was being accomplished, and now, in 1870, he had 
reached the age of sixty-three. A robust constitution, never 
abused by injurious habits, would doubtless have prolonged 
his life beyond the threescore years and ten which the Psalm- 
ist has ascribed as the allotted term of man ; but many causes 
were sapping and undermining it. The exposures of two 
wars in which he had participated, and the tremendous strain 
on nerves and heart and brain which his vast responsibilities 
and his accumulated trials had entailed, had been silently and 
gradually doing their work ; and now his step had lost some- 
thing of its elasticity, the shoulders began to stoop as if 
under a growing burden, and the ruddy glow of health upon 
his countenance had passed into a feverish flush. Into his 
ears, and into his heart, had been poured the afflictions of his 
people, and while composed and self-contained and uncom- 
plaining, — who could have looked upon that great face, 
over whose majestic lineaments there stole the shade of 
sadness, without perceiving that grief for those he loved was 
gnawing at the heart strings? — without perceiving in the 
brilliant eye, which now and then had a far-way, abstracted 
gaze, that the soul within bore a sorrow " that only Heaven 
could heal?" 

What he suffered his lips have never spoken. In the beau- 
tiful language of another: "His lips were closed like the 
gates of some majestic temple, not for concealment, but be- 
cause that within was holy." Yet let us take consolation to 
ourselves that there came to him much to give him joy. 
Around him were those united by the closest ties of blood 

(49) 



and relationship in unremitting fidelity. Not a man of those 
who ever fought under him — aye, not one — ever proved 
faithless in respect for him ; the great mass of them gave to 
him every expression in their power of their affection. To 
the noble mind sweet is the generous and genuine praise of 
noble men, and for Lee there was full measure. He lived to 
see deeply laid the foundation, and firmly built the pedestal, 
of his great glory, and to catch the murmur of those voices 
which would rear high his image and bear his name and 
fame to remote ages and distant nations. The brave and 
true of every land paid him tribute. The first soldiers of 
foreign climes saluted him with eulogy; the scholar decor- 
ated his page with dedication to his name; the artist en- 
shrined his form and features in noblest work of brush and 
chisel; the poet hymned the heroic pathos of his life in 
tender, lofty strain. Enmity grew into friendship before 
his noble bearing, and humanity itself attended him with 
all human sympathy. And over all, " God made soft his 
dying pillow." 

The particular form of his mortal malady was rheumatism 
of the heart, originating in the exposure of his campaigns, 
and aggravated by the circumstances of his many trying 
situations. He traveled South in the spring of 1870, and in 
the summer resorted to the Hot Springs of Virginia, and 
when September came he was here, in better health and 
spirits, at his accustomed work. On the 28th of September 
he conducted as usual his correspondence, and performed the 
incidental tasks of his office, and after dinner he attended a 
meeting of the vestry of Grace Episcopal Church, of which 
body he was a member. A question as to the minister's 
salary coming before the board, and there being a deficiency 
in the amount necessary, General Lee said: " I will give that 
sum." A sense of weariness came over him before the meet- 
ing ended, and at its close he retired with wan, flushed face. 
Returning home, he found the family circle gathered for tea, 
and took his place at the board, standing to say grace. The 
lips failed to voice the blessing prompted by the heart, and 
without a word he took his seat with an expression of sub- 

(50) 



lime resignation on his face ; for well he knew that the 
Master's call had come, and he was ready to answer. 

He was borne to his couch, and skilled physicians and 
loving hands did all that man could do. For nearly a fort- 
night 

" 'Twixt night and morn upon the horizon's verge, 
Between two worlds love hovered like a star." 

And then, on the morning of October I2th, the star of the 
mortal sank into the sunrise of immortality, and Robert Lee 
passed hence to " where beyond these voices there is peace." 

"Tell A. P. Hill to prepare for action," were amongst the 
last words of Stonewall Jackson. " Tell Hill he must come 
up," were the last words of Lee. Their brave lieutenant, 
who rests under the green turf of Hollywood, seems to 
have been latest in the minds of his great commanders, 
while their spirits, yet in martial fancy, roamed again the 
fields of conflict, and ere they passed to where the soldier 
dreams of battle-fields no more. 

And did he live in vain, this brave and gentle Lee ? And 
have his works perished with him? I would blush to ask 
the question save to give the answer. 

A leader of armies, he closed his career in complete dis- 
aster. But the military scientist studies his campaigns, and 
finds in them designs as bold and brilliant, and actions as 
intense and energetic, as ever illustrated the art of war. The 
gallant captain beholds in his bearing courage as rare as ever 
forced a desperate field or restored a lost one. The private 
soldier looks up at an image as benignant and commanding 
as ever thrilled the heart with highest impulse of devotion. 

The men who wrested victory from his little band stood 
wonder-stricken and abashed when they saw how few were 
those who dared oppose them, and generous admiration burst 
into spontaneous tribute to the splendid leader who bore 
defeat with the quiet resignation of a hero. The men who 
fought under him never revered or loved him more than on 
the day he sheathed his sword. Had he but said the word 
they would have died for honor. It was because he said the 
word that they resolved to live for duty. 

(SI) 



Plato congratulated himself, first, that he was born a man ; 
second, that he had the happiness of being a Greek; and, 
third, that he was the cotemporary of Sophocles. And in 
this vast throng to-day, and here and there the wide world 
over, is many a one who wore the gray, who rejoices that he 
was born a man to do a man's part for his suffering country ; 
that he had the glory of being a Confederate ; and who feels 
a just, proud, and glowing consciousness in his bosom when 
he says unto himself: " I was a follower of Robert Lee. I 
was a soldier of the Army of Northern Virginia." 

Did he wield patronage and power ? No. He could not 
have appointed a friend to the smallest office. He could 
bestow no emolument upon any of his followers. But an 
intimation of his wish amongst his own people carried an 
influence which the command of the autocrat can never pos- 
sess ; and his approval of conduct or character was deemed 
an honor, and was an honor, which outvied the stars and 
crosses and titles conferred by kings. 

Did he gain wealth ? No. He neither sought nor des- 
pised it. It thrust itself upon him, but he put it away from 
him. He refused its companionship because his people could 
not have its company. He gave what he had to a weak 
cause, and to those whose necessities were greater than his 
own. And home itself he sacrificed on the altar of his coun- 
try. But he refuted the shallow worldling's maxim that 
" every man has his price," and proved that true manhood has 
none, however great. 

The plunderer of India defended himself by exclaiming 
that "when he considered his opportunities, he was aston- 
ished at his own moderation." Mark Antony appeased the 
anger of the Roman populace against the fallen tyrant by 
reading Caesar's will, wherein he left them his rich and fair 
possessions — to them and their heirs forever. The captive 
of St. Helena, aggrandized with the tears and blood of 
Europe, drew his own long will, dispensing millions to his 
favorites. Lee had opportunities as great as any conqueror 
and took nothing — not even that which others pushed upon 
him. 

(52) 



But he has left a great, imperishable legacy to us and our 
heirs forever. The heart of man is his perpetual kingdom. 
There he reigns transcendent, and we exclaim : " Oh, king, 
live forever." 

Did he possess rank ? Not so. Far from it. He was not 
even a citizen. The country which gave the right of suffrage 
to the alien ere he could speak its language, and to the Af- 
rican freedman ere he could read or understand its laws, de- 
nied to him the privilege of a ballot. He had asked amnesty. 
He had been refused. He had not been tried, but he had 
been convicted. He forgave, but he was unforgiven. He 
died a paroled prisoner of war, in the calm of peace, five 
years after war had ended — died the foremost and noblest 
man in a republic which proclaims itself "the land of the 
free and the home of the brave," himself and his commander- 
in-chief constituting the most conspicuous of its political 
slaves. But as the oak stripped of the foliage by the winter 
blast, then, and then only, stands forth in solemn and mighty 
majesty against the wintry sky, so Robert Lee, stripped of 
every rank that man could give him, towered above the earth 
and those around him, in the pure sublimity and strength of 
that character which we can only fitly contemplate when we 
lift our eyes from earth and see it dimmed against the 
heavens ! 

Did he save his country from conquest? No. He saw his 
every foreboding of evil verified. He came to share the 
miseries of his people. He shared them, drinking every 
drop of sorrow's cup. His cause was lost, and the land for 
which he fought lives not amongst the nations. But the 
voice of history echoes the poet's song : — 

" Ah ! realm of tombs ! but let it bear 
This blazon to the last of times ; 
No nation rose so white and fair, 
Or fell so pure from crimes." 

And he, its type, lived and died, teaching life's greatest les- 
sons, "to suffer and be strong," and that "misfortune nobly 
borne is good fortune." 

(53) 



There is a rare exotic that blooms but once in a century, 
and then it fills the light with beauty and the air with fra- 
grance. In each of the two centuries of Virginia's statehood, 
there has sprung from the loins of her heroic race a son 
whose name and deeds will bloom throughout the ages. 
Each fought for liberty and independence; each against a 
people of his own race ; each against the forms of established 
power. George Washington won against a kingdom whose 
seat was three thousand miles away, whose soldiers had to 
sail in ships across the deep, and he found in the boundless 
areas of his own land its strongest fortifications. August, 
beyond the reach of detraction, is the glory of his name. 
Robert Edward Lee made fiercer and bloodier fight against 
greater odds, and at greater sacrifice, and lost — against the 
greatest nation of modern history, armed with steam and 
electricity, and all the appliances of modern science ; a na- 
tion which mustered its hosts at the very threshold of his 
door. But his life teaches the grandest lesson: — how man- 
hood can rise transcendent over adversity, and is in itself 
alone, under God, pre-eminent, — the grander lesson, because, 
as sorrow and misfortune are sooner or later the common lot, 
even that of him who is to-day the conqueror, he who bears 
them best is made of sternest stuff, and is the most useful and 
universal, as he is the greatest and noblest exemplar. 

And now he has vanished from us forever. And is this all 
that is left of him — this handful of dust beneath the marble 
stone ? No ! the ages answer as they rise from the gulfs of 
time, where lie the wrecks of kingdoms and estates, holding 
up in their hands, as their only trophies, the names of those 
who have wrought for man in the love and fear of God, and 
in love unfearing for their fellow-men. 

No ! the present answers, bending by his tomb. 

No ! the future answers, as the breath of the morning fans 
its radiant brow, and its soul drinks in sweet inspirations from 
the lovely life of Lee. 

No ! methinks the very heavens echo, as melt into their 
depths the words of reverent love that voice the hearts of 
men to the tingling stars. 

(54) 



Come we then to-day in loyal love to sanctify our memo- 
ries, to purify our hopes, to make strong all good intent by 
communion with the spirit of him who, being dead, yet speak- 
eth. Come, child, in thy spotless innocence ; come, woman, 
in thy purity ; come, youth, in thy prime ; come, manhood, in 
thy strength ; come, age, in thy ripe wisdom ; come, citizen, 
come, soldier, let us strew the roses and lilies of June around 
his tomb, for he, like them, exhaled in his life nature's benefi- 
cence, and the grave has consecrated that life and given it to 
us all ; let us crown his tomb with the oak, the emblem of his 
strength, and with the laurel, the emblem of his glory; and let 
these guns, whose voices he knew of old, awake the echoes of 
the mountains, that nature herself may join in his solemn 
requiem. 

Come, for here he rests, and — 

' ' On this green bank by this fair stream 
We set to-day a votive stone, 
That memory may his deeds redeem 
When, Hke our sires, our sons are gone." 

Come, for here the genius of loftiest poesy in the artist's 
dream, and through the sculptor's touch, has restored his 
form and features — a Valentine has lifted the marble veil 
and disclosed him to us as we would love to look upon 
him — lying, the flower of knighthood, in "Joyous Card." 
His sword beside him is sheathed forever; but honor's seal 
is on his brow, and valor's star is on his breast, and the peace 
that passeth all understanding descends upon him. Here, not 
in the hour of his grandest triumph of earth, as when, 'mid the 
battle roar, shouting battalions followed his trenchant sword, 
and bleeding veterans forgot their wounds to leap between 
him and his enemies — but here, in victory supreme, over earth 
itself and over death, its conqueror, he rests, his warfare done. 

And as we seem to gaze once more on him we loved and 
hailed as chief, in his sweet, dreamless sleep, the tranquil face 
is clothed with heaven's light, and the mute lips seem elo- 
quent with the message that in life he spoke : — 

" There is a true glory and a true honor ; the glory of duty 
done — the honor of the integrity of principle!' 

(55) 



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